The Nature of the Influence of Parents on the Education and Occupational Choice of School Pupils

Abstract

This enquiry arose from the writer's experience in the Careers Service where staff adhere to the view that parents are the single most influential factor upon the occupational choice of a pupil. At the same time, they argue that it is difficult for people not in regular touch with careers information to be informed about many jobs. Experience showed, too, that only a minority of parents had contact with careers advisers and that, because of time and work- load, rarely did careers staff learn much about parental knowledge of work. The aim was to discover what parents talked about to their children whether they used their own experience to help children see what issues should be considered, or was any help given limited to practical activities like job finding. In addition, the survey sought to find out how parents reacted to professional help offered. Occupational choice can be affected by choice of educational courses so the enquiry started by asking for parents' views about schools subjects. An attempt was made to discover if there were differences in attitudes and actions according to parental occupational level. A pilot stage was followed by a postal questionnaire to the parents of fifth form pupils in three different kinds of schools. 173 were returned completed or were completed at follow-up interviews. The school described as having the greatest percentage of social problems produced the lowest response; but nevertheless showed considerable agreement with the response from the other two groups of parents. Parents expressed interest in the topic and the need for careers advice. Their replies indicated that they generally felt powerless to influence school advice about subject choice and in all contacts with advisers saw their role as a passive rather than a contributory one; that they believed pupils to be ill-informed about work and would support schemes for working experience while at school; that they believed the job of a boy to be more important than that of a girl; and that the most important items to think about when choosing a job were that it should use one's ability and interest, be worth doing and be in long term demand. Few parents would seek to enforce their views and the nature of their influence amounted to support and encouragement.